Origin of Pu’er Tea

Preface

Pu’er Tea was a great contribution of People in Pu’er prefecture to tea. Pu’er tea got its name from Pu’er Prefecture and Pu’er prefecture became famous from Pu’er Tea in the world. Pu’er tea with fat buds, special process, fragrant smell, pure tasty and super health care frightened the tea faculty and it is preferred by the world. Especially, in recent years, with more and more people enjoying and collecting Pu’er tea, it has become a fashion and “an Alive Curio” on the top grade consuming market.

The place of origin

The parlance in society is very confusing. But it is the consensus that Pu’er tea got its name from Pu’er Prefecture, Pu’er Prefecture was the distribution center of Pu’er tea. According to the inference of economic regulation, there is no doubt that the original place of Pu’er Tea must be Pu’er Prefecture.According to the market formation regulation in natural economic period, if a product forms a certain distribution scale, firstly the place must have a certain production. After some are satisfied with own consumption, the most other part is still left as the merchandise for exchanging. Following its reputation, the merchants gather to buy and sell and then form the trade. Because the demanding pulls the market, the trade spreads toward the peripheral region gradually. According to the historical records, in Yongzheng period of Qing Dynasty, the imperial government established the official’s dispatching system in Pu’er Prefecture to strengthen the management to territories under its jurisdiction. The core was to promote research and development of tea planting, formulate a large commodity for the imperial government to increase tax and undertake the obligations to pay tributes to imperial government. Therefore, the establishment of Pu’er Prefecture promoted the tea development in the region of Pu’er greatly. With the passing of the time, Pu’er Prefecture gradually formed the center of large-scale process and trade by the tea industry and Pu’er also became the source of the Tea Horse Roads.

The tea faculty generally accepts that fermenting technology of Pu’er Tea is a special technology occurring at an opportunity by the train of horses, a special conveying tool owned by tea merchants in long conveyance. Pu’er is such a place that the tea merchants gathered and desired. More importantly, the tea merchants, through 5 Tea Horse Ancient Roads from Pu’er introduced and sold Pu’er Tea to all over the world. The world therefore learned Pu’er Tea. According to the Record of Pu’er Prefecture, the guild halls stood in a great number; the taverns and teahouses stretched long and rows upon rows at that time in Pu’er Prefecture. Chinese and Foreign tea merchants jostled one another in crowd. It became important town with the great influence at home and abroad. To sum the above, Pu’er Prefecture is not only the distribution center of Pu’er Tea, but also the earliest place of origin of Pu’er Tea. It plays a core and irreplaceable function to the development of the tea industry in peripheral region. So Pu’er Tea is well - worn fame to get its name from Pu’er Prefecture.

Moreover, there are still proof evidences that Pu’er Prefecture produced tea in the history. According to the records of “Ode on Tea King”, the tribute tea of Ning’er County firstly came from Ximen Mountain, which was also called Pu’er Mountain or Tianbi Mountain. Historical data recorded: “Pu’er Mountain, within Ning’er County of Yunnan grows tea, named Pu’er Tea, warm-natured and fragrant, different from other places.” It was used to pay tribute by prefecture Officials and called “the Crown of Tea”. But it was pity that it became furnace woods for making steel in 1950’s, left no one out of the bad luck. And then, tea of Banshan Mountain came to the second. Originally the mountain was fully covered with tea. During the tenth year of Yongzheng in Qing Dynasty (1732), the tea growers in Banshan couldn’t bear extreme suppression of feudal officials and raised their protest. In Autumn, the military force cruelly massacred tea growers. They were forced to move to the south. In the 6th year of Xianfeng (1856), Tian Yizheng, the leader of Hani minority led the people to revolt against Qing Dynasty. The tea growers in Banshan quickly responded to him. After 16 years’ hard fighting, they were suppressed by Qing military force. No one survived in the ruthless mass slaughter. The tea trees were also all chopped down. Having suffered combats twice, Ning’er County focused on tea process and distribution. The high profits promoted the producing of the raw materials of Pu’er Tea shifting toward surroundings. Thus it was untenable that Pu’er Tea was not produced in the Pu’er. If product scale of “100,000s persons enter the mountain to make tea”, it must has centralized the production ability of Ning’er, Simao, Weiyuan, Talang and Cheli of Pu’er Prefecture. The historically well-known 8 great tea areas Qianjianzhai, Bangwei, Jingmai, Banshan, Wuliangshang, Yunpanshan and Niuluohe are distributed in the east, west, south and north of Simao.

In this case, how many places belong to the ancient Pu’er Prefecture? According to records of “New Situation of Counties, Prefectures and Cities of Yunnan”, “Pu’er Prefecture was established in the 7th year of Yongzheng of Qing Dynasty (1729), namely Ning’er County (current Pu’er County), Simao (current Cuiyun District), Weiyuan (current Jinggu County), Talang (current Mojiang County) and Cheli (current Xishuangbanna Prefecture). In Qianlong, Daoguang and Guangxu of Qing Dynasty, Jingdong, Zhenyuan and Zhenbian were established one after another, among them, current 3 counties Lancang, Ximeng, Menglian and parts of Shuangjiang and Cangyuan under Zhenbian’s jurisdiction”. It is clear that today’s administrative rationalization of Pu’er Prefecture mainly includes Simao City, the whole Xishuangbanna Prefecture and Part of the Lincang Prefecture. Most areas of Pu’er Prefecture belong to the jurisdiction of present Simao City. Pu’er Prefecture Government is also located in present Pu’er County.

As many experts has drew the conclusion by investigation and analysis, Simao City, the historic Pu’er Prefecture is the heartland of the original tea place of the world, which can get the substantial evidences from historical data. “Records of Huayuang Country · Ba” by Changyu in Dongjing Period referred to that: In 1066 B.C., when King Zhouwuwang unleashed a punitive expedition to the King Zhou, he got the support by Pu and other 7 small kindoms in the Southwest. They paid the tributes red lacquer, honey and tea to the King Zhouwuwang. “Pu people are the earliest residents in Simao (Pu’er Prefecture), who were the ancestry of Wa and Bulang Minority. This shows that the history that Simao (Pu’er Prefecture) planted tea can be traced back to more than 3000 years ago. In the 3rd year of Xiantong of Tang Dynasty (862 A.D.), Fanzhuo was sent on a diplomatic mission to Yunnan. There were records in his “Man Book” that “Tea is planted in the boundary mountains of Yingsheng City, but no process methods. Mengsheman drink by boiling tea with ginger and laurel”. Yingsheng City is present Jingdong County of Simao City. Nanzhao Kindom of Tang Dynasty established Yingsheng Governor in Jingdong, reigning Simao City, the whole Xishuangbannan Prefecture and part of the Licang and Dali Prefecture. Tancui of Qing Dynasty in his book “the Record of Yunnan Forestry” stated that “Pu’er belonged to Yinsheng Government in former time, thereby tea use of Tibet had been from Tang Dynasty”, which has fully proved that the tea of Pu’er Prefecture was sold far to Tibet since Tang Dynasty and formed the trade of bartering tea for horses, Pu’er as its source. So Tea Horse Ancient Roads emerged with the trade. To Ming Dynasty, Pu’er had become the tea distribution center, Pu’er Tea officially went down in the historical book. Xie Zhaozhi in his “Yunnan Brief” said: “From officials to plebeians, all drink Pu’er tea”. Fang Yizhi in his “Physics Knowledge” recored: Pu’er Tea was steamed into conglobation and sold to the Tibet market”. To Qing Dynasty, Pu’er tea was developed into the height of splendour period and became the palace tribute tea. It was preferred by high officials and rich families. Zhao Xueming in his “Study Note of the Categorical Classification of Herb” in 1765 referred to: “Pu’er Tea, originated from Pu’er Prefecture of Yunnan”, which has already accurately determined the producing area of Pu’er Tea.

Real Pu’er Tea

Since Pu’er Tea originated in Simao, what is real Pu’er Tea then? Most experts and scholars have the consensus to the quality of Pu’er Tea: Pu’er Tea is a general term, in the bulk or pressed form, the sun-greened Yunnan grandifoliate species tea in Pu’er Prefecture as its raw material and fermented up to the local standard of Yunnan Province (including the natural or human being’s ferment). It includes four conditions: Firstly, the producing place and region are under the jurisdiction of Pu’er Prefecture; secondly, the raw material is sun-greened Yunnan grandifoliate species tea; thirdly, the process is a special late ferment, including the late natural or human being’s ferment, and fourthly, physical and chemical indicators must be up to “the Local Standard of Pu’er Tea of Yunnan Province” promulgated by Yunnan Provincial Bureau of Quality and Technique Supervision in 2003.

Place of Origin and Region

The area under Pu’er Prefecture’s jurisdiction is a rare oasis nearby Tropic of Cancer, belonging to the north tropical rim and south subtropical region, sunshine opulent, the annual average temperature between 18℃－ 20℃, annual average rainfall about 1500 mm, average humidity above 80%, climate warm and moist, with mountain system Ailao Mountain, Wuliang Mountain, etc and river system Lancangjiang River, Lixianjiang River, etc., the forest coverage rate up to 70%, the mountains wreathed with mist, growing a great quantity of tropical rain forest, monsoon forest and subtropical green broad-leaved forest. The special geography, climate and ecosystem environment is the most proper region for the tea growing. As the tea source center of the world, Simao City (Pu’er Prefecture) is still remaining the living fossil chain of the tea growing and developing up to now. The special big leaf species tea in this region has an incomparable and special quality in the world.

The raw material adopts fresh and sun-greened big leaf species tea of Yunnan.Yunnan big leaf species is very important to the formatting of the quality of Pu’er Tea, long and fat bud, a lot of brightened silvery pekoe, big and soft leaf, the new shoots growing for a long period and very tender. The contents of tea polyphenol, catechin, caffeine, tea ammonia acid and extracts are all higher than common middle and small leaf species tea. During late Pu’er Tea ferment, under effect of enzyme, microorganism and the wet and hot effect of water, its contents occurs a series of reactions: oxidation, polymerization, dissolution, degradation and condensation etc. Tea polyphenol, catechin, free tea ammonia acid, etc decreases greatly. So, the higher stroma tea polyphenol, amino acids, etc tea contains, the more advantageous to the formation of the high-quality Pu’er tea. Yunnan big leaf species tea is best raw material for Pu’er Tea.  

Techniques

The traditional Pu’er tea processes are: heat green, knead completely, dry, steam, empress into different shapes and then dry in air. At this time, it was called “Raw Tea”. Thereafter, in certain time and scientifically storing, it completes late fermenting course and becomes “Fermented Tea”. With the development of the Pu’er tea industry, researchers have achieved artificial fermenting technique by efforts, a complete course of “Fermented Tea”: classify sun-greened leaves by grades, put into pile by wet treatment to made it complete the late fermenting course quickly, then screen out the aged bulk tea and press into different shapes.

Physical & Chemical Indicators

Yunnan Provincial Bureau of Quality and Technique Supervision released “Pu’er Tea Local Standard of Yunnan Province” in January 2003. Among them, there is an explicit and concrete request to the physical and chemical indicators of Pu’er Tea. The Quality and Technical Supervision Bureau of Simao City, the Tea Association of Simao City and Pu’er Tea Institute of China jointly released “Regulations of Pu’er Tea Process Techniques and Management”. The compulsory standard of Pu’er Tea process techniques and managements of Simao City was established